The Interpreter

Dir. Martin Šulík
| 114 min

An 80-year-old Slovak man named Ali (Jiří Menzel) heads to Vienna to see the former SS officer responsible for his parents’ death. Instead of the perpetrator, he finds only the officer’s 70-year-old son Georg (Peter Simonischek), who disavowed his father’s past long ago.

Surprised, and oddly compelled by each other’s personal histories, the pair set off on a trip across Slovakia to shed light on the wartime tragedy. Yet an unavoidable settling of accounts ferments beneath the veneer of comic discord between ascetic Ali and bon vivant Georg: The darkness of the past can never entirely fade away. In an era of dangerous revisionism surrounding the events of WWII, the filmmakers emphasize the healing effects of dialogue between individuals and nations.